


Robert Has This Crazy Idea. It's Called Democracy.

by ForeverDaydreamer



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Aegon and Rhaenys Targaryen Live, Canon Divergence - Robert's Rebellion, Dragons, Elia Martell Lives, I thought of this while watching Hamilton, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, R Plus L Equals J, Rhaegar Targaryen Bashing, Rhaella Targaryen Lives, The Long Night, asexual Lyanna Stark, everything is beautiful and nothing hurts except the Long Night still happens, governmental reforms, in Robert's body, modern person in Westeros, stealth preparing for the Long Night, the best of all possible worlds
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:01:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 16,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27050842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForeverDaydreamer/pseuds/ForeverDaydreamer
Summary: A SI into Robert Baratheon towards the end of Robert’s Rebellion. He’s got big plans, for big changes. Improving the Westerosi quality of life, and dragging the Seven Kingdoms (more like nine now) out of feudalism…
Relationships: Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen, Leia Baratheon/Arya Stark, Lyonel Baratheon/Rhaenys Targaryen, Robert Baratheon/OFC
Comments: 30
Kudos: 165





	1. Plot Begins

**Author's Note:**

> Starting after the whole "omg, I'm in a SI fic" panic....

Once he had decided on his course of action, Robert had three ravens sent out. The first raven, going to King’s Landing, declared Aerys unfit to be king, and put a price of 500 dragons on his head. The letter also announced a preemptive pardon for the killing of Aerys, with the promise of nnoblement and the title Defender of the Realm. It also promised amnesty and forgiveness to any loyalists who laid down their arms, and announced Robert’s intent to claim the throne through a Great Council, at which any other contender for the throne would be welcome to present their case. The second raven went to Dragonstone, addressed rather pointedly to the Dowager Queen Rhaella, offering a notice of the Great Council and a promise of safety for all the remaining Targaryens. The third raven, and the most nerve-wracking to write, went to Tywin Lannister. The Sacking of King’s Landing had to be prevented, and Robert needed Tywin’s support to succeed in the Great Council. He labored over the document and chose his words very carefully, thanking him for his neutrality in the war, making out as if it had been something bold and noble and done purposely to benefit the rebels rather than him sitting on his hands and playing it safe, notifying him of the Great Council, hinting that if Robert was chosen he would give the Lords Paramount significantly more say in governance, and outright promising a seat on the Small Council in exchange for the Lannisters’ support.

There was some talk over whether it was dishonorable to put a price on Aerys’ head. Robert cleared it with a simple, “A mad dog gets put down like a mad dog. It’s done immediately and by whoever’s closest. Aerys doesn’t deserve more than that, and frankly, I think it’s unsafe to leave him alive long enough for us to take the capitol and kill him. Even he must understand that he is doomed, and a wild animal is most dangerous when it’s cornered.”

Then Robert split his party up--he sent Jon Arryn to seize control of the capitol while he broke the siege of Storm’s End. The Stark army was divided between the two men as Ned was sent out with a small group to find Lyanna. “Are you sure, Robert?” Ned had asked. “The war’s not over.”

“It’s as good as,” Robert says. “I’ve sent five men ahead of the army to spread it around King’s Landing that there’s a price on Aerys’ head. I can’t imagine he’ll be alive for much longer. No one will be safe until he’s dead, and we’ll have justice for all the people he killed. But your sister is alive, and that means that we can do more for her. We didn’t go to war to seize King’s Landing, or to make me king. We did it to ensure our safety, and that of your family. I’m worried about what will happen to Lyanna now that Rhaegar is dead--will whoever he left to look after her abandon her? Will they kill her to punish us for killing Rhaegar? And what if she’s with child? We have to keep that possibility in mind. You must go and find her immediately. I received an unsigned letter this morning, probably from the Spider, claiming she’s at a place called the Tower of Joy in Dorne. She needs you. Just tell her two things for me: first, that if, after her ordeal, she doesn’t want to marry, I will respect her wishes. Second, that if she is pregnant, I will not let any harm come to the child, and will do my best to see that her wishes regarding the upbringing of the child are carried out.”

“You’re a good man, Robert,” Ned said. With a final clasp of their arms, he set out. Well, Robert thought as he watched Ned and his small party ride away. _Hopefully if the R+L=J theory is right, they’ll arrive early enough that she doesn’t die in childbirth. Now I have two brothers to save._

* * *

Robert was a bit worried about breaking the siege of Storm’s End. It would be the first battle he would fight post brain-swap, as he’d begun thinking of it, though he hoped canon Robert wasn’t in his other body mucking up his original life. Would the body remember how to fight, even though the brain didn’t? Could he stomach the thought of having to kill someone?

Thankfully, all of his worrying was for nothing, as the day before they arrived at Storm’s End they received word that Aerys had been killed by one of the palace cooks. He’d approached Aerys, claiming to have knowledge of a plot to poison him, implicated the Lannisters to make him send Ser Jaime away, and then bashed his head in with a rolling pin. With the king dead, Mace Tyrell was all too eager to surrender. He likely realized that Robert was likely to be the next king--in previous Great Councils, the lords tended to choose an adult heir to a child one, even if the child had a more direct claim. So there was precedent for Robert becoming king even though Aegon and Viserys were alive. Mace really was as stupid as canon made him out to be--Robert shouted at him and threatened him a bit, dropped a few hints he was likely to be the next king, and soon Mace was all but begging for the privilege of paying reparations of grain to Storm’s End and supporting Robert in the Great Council. Robert tried to think of a way to say “Bring your mother” without being rude. Ultimately he said something about having no idea how to set up a royal court, and wishing his mother was still alive to guide him. Then adding “I hear your mother is quite adept at courtly games.” Hopefully Mace would get the hint. If not, he couldn’t imagine Olenna letting Mace go to the capitol alone.

Now Robert faced his first trial: mending his relationship with his brothers. Canon Robert had been an awful brother, particularly to Stannis. But without the whole Dragonstone slight, it shouldn’t be too late to turn things around. The people of Storm’s End were a sorry sight to see, all skin and bones. Robert greeted them with the gift of all the Tyrell food supplies not needed for the army to return to the Reach (which, considering the Tyrells’ fondness for feasting, was a lot of food). This was very welcome news, obviously, and the people greeted him with joy instead of the grim determination that had characterized them only moments before. That announcement done, Robert quickly made his way to his brothers. He picked Renly up and swung him around, and greeted Stannis with a more sedated hand to the shoulder. “Thank you for holding the castle for me, brother,” he said. “It was no easy feat. You’ve done well. Let’s go inside. My squire will bring us something to eat, and I can tell you my plans.” Stannis’ eyes were wide with surprise. Had canon Robert never given him validation before? Fuck that guy.

  
Robert had instructed his squire that morning to have food and water (remembering that Stannis didn’t like wine) with him before they went in to the castle. Thus prepared, and still carrying Renly, he allowed Stannis to lead him inside and to the lord’s solar. The squire set the food out, and Renly immediately lost all interest in everything else, devouring everything he could get his hands on. Stannis ate at a more moderate pace, but there was a glint of desperation in his eyes, and he clutched his food in a claw-like grip.

“Gods, Stannis,” he began. “You look like you’ve been through hell.” That seemed like an appropriately Robert-esque statement. “But you won’t have to worry about how to feed everyone for years to come. I’ve seized all the Tyrell food supply, besides what’s strictly necessary for them to take their soldiers home, and they’ve agreed to pay reparations in grain for the next ten years. Now, is there anything I should know about the siege, before I tell you my news?”

  
As expected, Stannis rattled off a series of repairs that needed to be carried out, and tacked on at the end, almost as an afterthought, the story of Davos Seaworth and his onions. Robert simply nodded at Stannis’ judgement. Once Stannis was done, he began his news. “Well, you’ve probably heard already, but that prick Rhaegar is dead. I killed him. Aerys is dead too; I offered a reward for killing him and one of the cooks did it. I’d like you to find a small keep for the man; maybe your smuggler and my kingslayer can be neighbors. Anyways. I’m calling a Great Council. I expect to leave it a king. I’ve never wanted to be a king but if I’m going to do it I’m going to be a damn good one. You can have a seat on my small council or stay here and rule the Stormlands for me, whichever you’d prefer. But I’m going to be making waves, and your support will be important.”

Stannis stared. “You’ve never asked me what I wanted before,” he said. Robert winced.

“It occurs to me that I wasn’t a very good brother before,” he said. “I--I suppose the truth is, I never thought I was important. I knew I was to be Lord of Storm’s End, but there have been many Lords before me, and gods willing there will be many after. I thought I might as well do what I wanted, because my decisions wouldn’t be all that important, in the scope of history. I never intended to be a big player in the game of thrones. Well, history’s went and taken away any chance of insignificance for me. Westeros needs a good king, and it looks like it will fall to me to be it. And it occurred to me that to be a good king I have to be a good brother first--I have a duty to all the people of Westeros, but before I had a duty to them I have one to you. I hope we can make things right between us before I go on to King’s Landing.”


	2. Arrival at the Capital/The Lannisters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robert arrives in King's Landing and makes his case to the people. Meanwhile, Tywin is considering how to react to these developments....

Robert knew that, when it came to royalty, image and PR was everything. So he designed his arrival to King’s Landing to make a statement. He rode at the head of his army waving. Immediately behind him was a row of standard-bearers, holding not just Baratheon banners, but also Stark, Arryn, Tully, and Tyrell ones, announcing quite possibly the most powerful alliance Westeros had ever seen, and his strong base of support in the Great Council. His squires, dressed in Baratheon colors with the stag sigil prominently displayed on their chests, went around distributing coin and foodstuffs to the smallfolk, who were already addressing him as “Good King Robert.”

This parade wound its way through the city and ended at the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor, where Robert made a speech.

“I have called for a Great Council, so that whoever next sits the Iron Throne can do so without any claims of illegitimacy or usurpation,” he declared. “It is my hope that the Great Council will make its decision based not on lineage, wealth, or strength of arms, but who has the best and clearest vision of what to do with the kingship. My vision, should I be selected, is simple and reasonable: I believe that all our people should be fed, housed, and clothed, that all men and women should have good honest work, and that the wise leadership of lords will prevent unnecessary violence. The king should organize his government to make these goals possible, and to devise practical means of implementation, so that across the world people will say, that Westeros is the best place to live, and has the happiest people.”

A great cheer rose up from the crowd, and they chanted his name. “Everyone has food” really is a low bar to set, but God knows clearing it is harder than it looks. Twenty-first century America struggled with it. To the people of feudal Westeros, it was a truly radical statement, and must seem like a pipe dream. Robert hoped he wasn’t promising something he couldn’t deliver.

* * *

The Lannisters arrived in King’s Landing with less fanfare. All the Lords Paramount and their families were given housing in the Red Keep. This had been decreed by Robert Baratheon, side-stepping Rhaella Targaryen, who Robert claimed was, at least until the Great Council was over, mistress of the keep. Despite these protestations, it was clear that Robert was the one who controlled the castle, and the capitol. Jon Arryn had reached the capitol before Rhaella had returned from Dragonstone.

Baratheon was a much better player of the game than anyone had foreseen. His arrival to the capitol was downright masterful, and he had won the smallfolk to his side with promises of food for all. They might riot if he was not chosen by the Great Council, as unlikely as that was. Baratheon had all his ducks in a row--he had the support of four of the other Lords Paramount, with overtures towards a fifth, and had managed to move Mace Tyrell from besieging his castle to supporting his claim overnight. Not content to rely on that, or the historical precedent that a Great Council would prefer an adult descended through the female line to the throne over a child descended through the male line, he’d broken the Targaryen bloc in half by suggesting _Rhaella_ as claimant to the throne over her grandson, pointing out her experience as queen consort, that she was the last surviving child of King Jaehaerys, and that one of Aerys’ last acts as king had struck Rhaegar’s line from the succession. No one really took the suggestion of Rhaella as queen regnant seriously, but now the loyalists were split between supporting baby Aegon and the child Viserys. Predictably, they had devolved into pro-Dornish and anti-Dornish factions.

Baratheon was part of a powerful new alliance, and Tywin wanted in. Not just that, House Lannister _needed_ in, or else they might lose their place as one of the most prominent families in Westeros, and most powerful players of the game. Supporting him in the Council and receiving a seat on the Small Council would not be enough, not when most of the alliance was connected through marriage. Luckily, Tywin had a beautiful, unmarried daughter, and one of his spies in the Red Keep had reported that Baratheon had told Jon Arryn that he suspected his proposal to Lyanna Stark would be broken. After that Tywin had hurried to have a meeting with Baratheon to arrange a betrothal before anyone else could, and to free his heir of his white cloak while he was at it.

Baratheon was a large, robust man, with a loud voice and a friendly smile. “Lord Lannister. It’s so good to meet you,” he’d said jovially. He struck a nice balance between formality and a warm greeting. Then he tried to flatter Tywin’s ego. “I was hoping to receive your counsel. You are without a doubt the most experienced statesman in all of Westeros. Without you the Targaryen regime just fell apart. Whoever takes the Iron Throne, will surely rely on your support.”

“Don’t play at false humility. We both know _you_ will be the next king of Westeros,” Tywin said. “Well done. But you are still a novice at the game. You will estrange the lords by cozying up to the smallfolk.”

“That is sound advice, my lord, but I have learned from the example of Aegon the Unlikely,” Baratheon said. “His mistake, besides allowing his children to break their betrothals, was offering the smallfolk more rights without doing the same for the lords. I plan to offer the lords just as much as I do the smallfolk, if not more. But I won’t say any more than that; the walls have ears, you know, and I don’t want my plans to get out before I mean to announce them. I will say, though, that I mean to add several new positions to the small council, and I would like you to be the first Master of Trade.”

“Master of Trade,” Tywin repeated, trying to decide whether or not it was an insult to be offered a new (and potentially less important) role. “Tell me more.”

“The Master of Trade would set policies on foreign trade, and oversee domestic trade and handle trade disputes,” Baratheon answered promptly. “Perhaps it’s not much to a man who used to run the whole country, but Lannisport is one of the biggest centers of trade in Westeros, so I can’t imagine someone else with more relevant experience. I would also have another task for you, one more appropriate to your level of skill and experience, but I would need that to be a bit more...discreet.”

“Oh?” Now this was interesting. Could Baratheon be about to ask him to have the remaining Targaryens quietly killed? To make it look like an accident? It would be useful, to have the king in his debt. Would certainly be useful blackmail material.

But Robert did not say what Tywin expected him to say. “The Ironborn are a problem, and if any man could solve that problem, it would be you. We both know that they’ve been a thorn in the west coast’s side for centuries, and a shakeup like a change in regime practically encourages them to get up to mischief. But who can blame them for falling back to the old ways, when they live on a bunch of rocks and their religion endorses violence? The Iron Islands need a form of industry that will support them so they don’t have to turn to reaving. Something that will make reaving unnecessary, and then I can penalize it so harshly that the islanders will decide there are safer ways to get rich. And something has to be done about the Drowned God--I’m not saying that the islanders all need to convert to the Seven or the Old Gods, but their religion needs to be less bloodthirsty and more law-abiding. I’m talking about getting rid of the Ironborn threat for good, by making them self-sufficient and integrating them with the rest of Westeros. It’s a hell of a task. The work of a lifetime. And it would all have to be done without the Greyjoys catching on or the islanders feeling condescended to or pitied.”

“That is a gargantuan task,” Tywin agreed. “I’m surprised you’re not asking Arryn,” he adds coolly. “I hear he is to be your Hand?”

“Yes,” Baratheon answered, “Jon raised me, after my parents died, and there’s no one I trust more than him. But this isn’t a task for a Hand--the Hand is too visible, and has enough to do already. Besides, Jon doesn’t have stake in this the way you do, and neither do I. Neither of us have lands on the west coast; the Ironmen would have to go all the way around Dorne to raid either of us. Whereas Lannisport is the first place they would go. This wouldn’t be an act of altruism on your part, it would solve a problem before it had the chance to arise. And that sort of self-interest I trust.”

“Very well,” Tywin said. Baratheon had a point--the Iron Islands were closest to the Westerlands, and thus they were his problem first and foremost. Additionally, this would be something no Targaryen had done, something no Targaryen had even _tried_ . This might be his legacy, more than anything he’d done for Aerys. Cersei becoming queen would be the crowning jewel, the feather in his cap. But first, he had to secure his heir. “I will support you in the Great Council, _if_ you have Jaime released from the Kingsguard.”

“I thought you would say that,” Baratheon responded. “Well, it’s a reasonable request. I will let him go, on the condition that he says that he was coerced into accepting. Which he was. Aerys wasn’t the type of man you could refuse.”

Tywin hummed noncommittally, pleased to have accomplished one of his goals, and then went in for the kill. “Have you considered who you are going to marry? The Stark girl is ruined.”

“I don’t care a jot about that,” Baratheon said. _Foolish man._ “No, what worries me is the possibility that her experience will have traumatized her. She well may be afraid of men now. And when the betrothal was arranged, it was with the idea that she would be Lady of Storm’s End, not a queen. The situation is so different from what she expected she deserves a chance to back out. Not every little girl dreams of being queen, and not everyone’s suited to that sort of role--I don’t know how well she’d be able to navigate court, and I doubt she’d like King’s Landing. No, I don’t think Lyanna will be my queen--I don’t think she’d want to be, and I don’t think she’s fit for it. I need someone extraordinary--someone well versed in courtly games, someone who sees through pretenses and false airs, someone who knows how to manipulate people but still cares about them. Someone prepared to have real power, and not just be an ornament or a broodmare. I plan on establishing a Queen’s Court, in charge of dispensing several new royal funds, ones that deal with women’s traditional roles of household management and charity but on a much larger scale. I’ll have to marry with an eye to lineage and advantage, but what I really care about is intelligence, kindness, and temperament, and a passion for improving the lives of the people under her care.”

Tywin was about to speak when Jon Arryn walked in. “Robert, you need to come and settle a dispute between Lord Bracken and Lord Blackwood--oh, Lord Lannister, excuse me. I’m sorry to interrupt, but I must insist Robert come with me.”

Tywin allowed the king-to-be to be taken away, and went back to his apartments. He walked in to find Cersei belittling a maid. He silenced her and dismissed the maid with a gesture. “Don’t speak to the servants that way,” he said.

“Why shouldn’t I?” Cersei said crossly. “They don’t matter.”

“But the man who is going to be king matters,” Tywin said. “And he wants his queen to be kind. To care about the smallfolk. From this moment onwards you are going to be the kindest girl to exist since the Maiden herself. Tomorrow morning you’ll get up early to go to the sept and then give alms to the poor. More money than the miserable smallfolk in this city have ever seen. By dinner all of King’s Landing will know of your generosity. Give some money to the servants too--make nice with them; they talk too. I don’t want to hear one insult or chastisement leave your lips ever again. This is a chance that House Lannister will never see again--this man wants the queen to have her own court. A queen with real power! If you marry this man, you will be a queen the likes of which Westeros has never seen. Not even Visenya or Rhaenys would compare to your influence and authority. So you’d better be the kindest damn girl Robert Baratheon has ever met.”


	3. Lyanna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lyanna lives! And tells her story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I was reading some Rhaegar-bashing and historical Targaryens (as in, pre-GOT time period) fic and came up with this….

It turned out the R+L=J theory was, indeed, correct. When Ned returned to the city, he brought back his sister with a baby in her arms. When they appeared before Robert--privately, informally, not in his makeshift throne room--Ned carried the child. Lyanna stared at the floor, wringing her hands, and when she looked up and saw Robert had entered the room she flung herself at his feet before he even had the chance to sit down. “Forgive me, forgive me, your Grace!” she said. “I have wronged you.”

“Be calm, Lyanna,” Robert said. He meant to continue this line of thought with a promise that no harm would come to her, but she interrupted him, wailing and pulling at her hair.

“Be _calm?_ How can I be calm? I have not been able to be calm for some ten moons past,” she said. “This war, it’s my fault, it’s my fault, it’s my fault my father and brother are dead! I’m the worst daughter that ever lived!”

“Lyanna,” Robert said, “I promise you, whatever you may have done or think you might have done, the war and your family’s deaths are the fault of no one but Aerys.”

“But I went with him!” she cried. “Rhaegar! I went--willingly!”

“Still, the fault lies with Aerys,” Robert said, soothingly. “Your family was--their request was not unreasonable. It was expectable. What they did, shouldn’t have been a dangerous thing to do. Any reasonable person would say so, and any reasonable person would expect this request to be fulfilled, maybe even with an apology. No one could have predicted what Aerys did. Clearly, your father didn’t--he wouldn’t have come to King’s Landing if he hadn’t thought it was safe. We all judged Aerys wrong, we all expected him to behave sensibly, or at least to be forced by his advisors to do so. No one can predict what an insane, non-rational man like him will do; it’s why I had a price put on his head rather than kill him myself. But I think it’s becoming clear that many assumptions were made about what happened to you, which may not have been correct. So I’d like to ask you now, to explain to me your side of the story.”

Lyanna nodded tearfully and began. “I--I was the Knight of the Laughing Tree at Harrenhal,” she said. “Rhaegar found me, and he promised not to tell anyone, to protect me. We--we met a few times, and talked, and he said he gave me the roses because I was truer than any of the knights there, and could have bested all of them. That I was the true champion of the tourney.” She paused, frowned. “Maybe that’s not the best place to begin. I’ve always felt that the gods were up to mischief when they created me. I’ve never cared for womanly pursuits, I’ve always had interests better suited than a man. I was always so mad that my brothers could do things I could not. And I’ve never wanted to be a wife. Any man’s wife. But--but I was especially upset, that my father never even seemed to consider marrying me to a northerner. He was so interested in southern alliances. I was so mad, that my brothers would get to stay in the north and I wouldn’t, that my brothers could raise their children according to our ways and mine would be brought up in the Faith of the Seven, and I was afraid that the south would be even less accepting of my interests, my real self, than Father had been...I said some of this to Rhaegar. I couldn’t exactly hide how unladylike I was to him, considering how we met. But...he didn’t make me feel different, or wrong, for being this way, for wanting these things. He said it was admirable. And he said--he said when he was king, things would be different. He would make it so no woman could be forced into marriage against her will, not even by her father, because that had happened to his mother, and he’d never known her to be truly happy. He said I would wither away, like she did, he said….things about you, horrid things, that I shall not repeat, but I believed him. I believed him, because he was your cousin, and because I thought he was all that was good and honorable, and because I didn’t believe that anyone would use their own mother’s suffering to trick someone. He said that he was going to depose his father, that if I went with him it would show he had the North’s support, that it would prove to my father that I could create alliances for him in ways other than marriage. He said that he would knight me, that I would be allowed to bear a sword, that I could create a group of warrior women in his court. It--it all seemed so grand, and more than I’d ever thought I could have--”

Her voice broke, and tears streamed down her face. “I….I thought I was in love with him. With _him_ . I left a note, I left a letter in my bed at Riverrun singing his praises, I don’t know what happened to it, but I left a note, I swear, I swear on my life, I swear on my son’s life, I didn’t just disappear without saying a word. I went with him, and he--I didn’t realize what he was trying to do, at first, and then I didn’t believe it, I didn’t want to believe it, I didn’t think him capable of such a thing. He was trying to get me to lay with him, but I wasn’t going to, I wasn’t, I wouldn’t, I--I loved him, but I loved him because I thought he wouldn’t do it, because I thought he respected his wife too much to do it….and then I heard that Brandon and Father had been killed, and I knew I had to leave, that I had to go home, that I had made a mistake, and he stopped me from leaving, he stopped me, they took my sword and my bow and wouldn’t leave me alone for a minute, and he kept trying, and now I realized what he was doing and I said, I said I’d never do it, his father had just killed my father and my brother and how could he think I’d do it, and….and…”

She was sobbing now, shaking with it, great heaving gasps gulping for air. “He had his knights hold me down. He had them hold me down, and he said he had to do it, that the dragon must have three heads, he said I’d made him do it, that he didn’t want to do it, that I didn’t understand. He--he acted like _I_ was the unreasonable one. All of a sudden, it was like he was a different person. He didn’t care, anymore, about what I wanted, or anything he’d said about his mother, and how things like that just shouldn’t happen, he only cared about his three heads of the dragon, and the glorious future they would have. It was like I didn’t even exist, like I wasn’t a person anymore, and I realized it had all been lies, he’d never seen me as anything more than a womb. He never cared about me at all, just the three heads, and the song of ice and fire, he thought I was the ice and he was the fire. It was never about the Knight of the Laughing Tree, or me being different, he went to the tourney of Harrenhal looking for a northern girl to bear him a child... He stayed until it was clear that I was pregnant, and then he told me that my child was Visenya and left.”

She bowed her head. “The gods punished me. _Are_ punishing me. I didn’t want my father to tell me what to do, or who to be, and so they made it so I had no father at all. I didn’t want to be a broodmare and tried to run away, and they made me one anyway, but without the respectability of a wife. I didn’t want to be a lady, so they made me a whore. I should have just done what my father told me. I shouldn’t have thought I could be more.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Lyanna. Generally in fics I see either “Rhaegar and Lyanna were in love, and Elia was cool with it somehow” or OT3 or both Rhaegar and Lyanna bashing, where Rhaegar is a little mentally unsound and Lyanna is a spoiled brat. And canon has left enough to the imagination to support that interpretation. And sometimes I like those. But I wanted to do a fic where Rhaegar sucks and neither Lyanna nor Elia are villainized women. I also wanted to do something I haven’t seen before, and Lyanna was kind of speaking to me, so: ace Lyanna! (It may have been too subtle to pick up on, but Lyanna IS ace. A big reason that she liked Rhaegar is because she thought he was safe--that he was less lustful than other men, or that at the very least he wouldn’t be lustful towards her because he was married and too honorable to cheat on his wife.) Also, strongly religious Lyanna! I read somewhere that one of the biggest flaws in GOT’s historicity/worldbuilding is how few characters take religion seriously, that is, how many are agnostic/atheist. Most medieval people were EXTREMELY religious. I think that this is a problem that’s sort of highlighted in the North because the old religion is so vague and poorly-fleshed-out. Like, even if a lot of the main characters are pretty agnostic, there are still a lot of characters who appear who are very pious….about the Seven. Not so much in the North--it’s not really clear what someone really devout in the old ways would act like, or how they would signal their piety, beyond disliking Andals. Also, a lot of fic talk about Catelyn’s pain that her children are fundamentally different from her culturally and/or religiously, or conversely that their political position could be undermined by being/being seen as “too Southron”, but I haven’t seen anyone consider that canon!Lyanna was facing the same situation, if not worse, and honestly I think that alone is grounds for her to be against a marriage to Robert. I mean, imagine telling a Catholic princess--I’m thinking one of the really pious ones like Catherine of Aragon or Mary Tudor--that she had to marry a Protestant and raise her children that way. She’d never put up with it. She’d raise hell. This sort of mindset, that you don’t marry outside your religion, has carried on to the present in fringe groups, and almost to the present in mainstream--my own grandmother was told that she could only date Catholic boys.  
> That was a tangent. Anyway, I want to include a note as to how this affects Lyanna’s future and her relationship with the next generation of Starks: badly. Lyanna has this idea that this all happened because she resisted feminine norms/ideals, and she ends up overcorrecting hard, and internalizing some nasty things, like it is just natural for women to be submissive, bad things happen when you resist nature, etc. It destroys her relationship with Arya. Lyanna prefers Sansa, and admires how everything that was so difficult for her (and Arya) seem to come naturally to Sansa, and encourages her being ladylike because she thinks it will make her “safe”, but Sansa is not naive at all. Lyanna makes sure she knows at a young age that songs are lies and all that glitters is not gold. She would spot Joffrey as a fake from a mile away.  
> Her experiences have a strong affect on Ned, in the opposite way. Poor Ned--I wanted to include a conversation between him and Robert where is he just completely dazed, holding a baby, and saying: “I never knew she was so unhappy.” After this Ned listens to Lyanna and realizes that her concerns about the match with Robert were valid, and he also feels bad that she felt so stifled her entire life, so he is more lenient with Arya than he would have been otherwise, and intends to be much more careful in arranging matches for all of his children and be sure to take their wishes into consideration. He’s basically the best dad in Westeros after this.


	4. The Great Council

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robert makes a speech to the Great Council.

“When I entered the city, I said that it was my hope that the Great Council would choose the next king or queen of Westeros based on who had the best vision of what they would do with the role, and what their goals were,” Robert began. “Too often, princes have only considered what the kingship and the country could do for them, and not what they could do for the country.” Yeah, he was stealing JFK’s line. It wasn’t like anyone here could call him out on it.

“I say ‘the country’ and not ‘the throne’ because I think viewing kingship as a throne limits and obscures what the role really entails. Being king is not about a throne--a throne is a chair. It’s unchanging, unfeeling, inanimate and lifeless. Being king is about a country, something that’s living and changing and growing every second of every day, and kings have to understand, anticipate, and adapt with the changes of their kingdom. And I think that the past few years have made it clear that the current system of kingship has not changed since the dragons died, and can no longer keep up with the changed circumstances of life in Westeros. The Targaryens have not changed, not since Aegon the Unlikely tried and failed to bring them into the present. The Targaryens still rule as if they could call down another Field of Fire at any moment--they do what they want, and they expect everyone else to be too afraid to challenge them. But we are not afraid, and we are more than capable of challenging them. The Targaryens have continued their practice of marrying brother to sister, to keep the blood pure, even though the reason they said they had to keep the blood pure, to maintain control over their dragons, has gone. The lost opportunities and stability that would have been possible through marriage alliances, and the increasing mental instability due to inbreeding, are not worth maintaining unusual hair or eye colors. The Targaryens have no understanding of how politics works without the advantage of the implicit threat of fiery death at every moment! Even among themselves, they were not able to resolve disputes through anything other than fire and blood. These kingdoms should never have seen war from the time of the conquest to the time that the dragons died. The dragons should have safeguarded peace and prosperity--instead the Targaryens squandered this time squabbling amongst themselves. What is the use of having such terrifying beasts if not to prevent war? Imagine what Westeros would be like if the Targaryens did not make war on each other, but solved their internal disputes through negotiation and compromise like other Great Houses. Imagine that for a hundred years no one would dare make war with Westeros, and that century--and all the money that was frittered away on the Targaryens’ family squabbles--were used to build roads, canals, aqueducts, bridges, fortifications, and restore castles in disrepair. We would be the envy of the world! With careful strategy, we could have conquered half of Essos, or destroyed the loathsome practice of slavery! In my eyes, the gods killed the last of the dragons not because magic was leaking out of the world, but because the Targaryens weren’t _utilizing_ them properly! Can it be any coincidence that the dragons fell sick and died immediately after the worst of their wars amongst themselves, the Dance of the Dragons? The gods took away their dragons so they would have to learn subtlety and politicking like the rest of us. The gods gave the Targaryens a second chance, when they hung on to the throne after the Dance, and they _squandered_ it! They continued fighting among themselves and drawing the rest of us into it with the Blackfyre Rebellions! They continued marrying brother to sister and becoming less and less sane with every generation! They _continually_ show no respect for betrothals and marriage alliances! How else to explain Rhaegar’s actions, or those of his grandparents? This is not the first time a Targaryen has broken a Baratheon marriage contract! Their word is worth nothing. How can we trust anyone from this line to govern us, much less a child who has yet to reveal their temperament and soundness of mind?” Robert paused.

“But of course, while this is an argument _against_ the Targaryens, it is hardly an argument _for_ me. So why should any of you choose me? Choose me because I was not born expecting to be king. I was born expecting to be one of you! I have been a lord, a high lord, who has seen how little that meant to a tyrannical king, and I will dedicate my reign to making sure it will never happen again! A king should not be able to execute a Lord Paramount with no trial. No lord who has done nothing wrong should have to fear for his life, and force his family to choose between their honor, their oath of fealty, and the life of a loved one, like I have. No lord should lose his family like Ned has. No lady should be held hostage by her goodfather like Princess Elia was, and used to force her family to fight a war they have no interest in. They say the Targaryens answer neither to gods nor men. Well, I am not a Targaryen, and I will be answerable to _you_! I propose the creation of a council, a Council of Lords, who will be able to convene and strip a king of his crown by two-thirds majority vote at _any time_ , for reasons of insanity, illness, senility, some other impairment which interferes with his ability to fulfill his duties, executing or torturing someone without charges or trial, mistreatment of hostages, extreme cruelty along the lines of Maegor the Cruel or Aerys the Mad, or gross negligence and incompetence similar to Aegon the Unworthy. Never again will Westeros go to war to remove an unfit king from the throne! Never again will the people of Westeros cross their fingers and hope the king doesn’t make some mad fool pronouncement on the throne today! These are _our_ kingdoms, and we should damn well be able to choose who is in charge of them all!” Raucous cheers and applause from the audience. “But that’s not all! Not only will the Council of Lords keep tyrants and lunatics off the throne and in the madhouse, they will also be able to propose laws! Every law will be proposed before this council, and voted on. If the majority votes in favor the law will go on to the king to be rejected or approved. This council will be made up of two representatives of the Crown, one representative chosen by each Lord Paramount, and one representative from each kingdom _chosen by all the lords and ladies of that kingdom_. Too long have the lords and ladies been cut off from governance of their lands, and obliged to indulge the petty whims of whoever sits the Iron Throne! No more! Every kingdom, every lord, every lady gets a say! That is my vision for the kingship! This is the new Westeros!”


	5. Small Council

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robert tells Jon Arryn his picks for his new, extended Small Council.

Robert caught Jon Arryn as dinner ended and led him back to his chambers. He grabbed a piece of paper from his frankly overflowing desk, wrote on it for a few minutes, and then handed it to Jon, saying, “These are my ideas for appointees to the Small Council. Tell me what you think.” The paper read:

_ Master of Laws - Bronze Yohn Royce _

_ Master of Coin - Lord Estermont _

_ Master of Ships - Lord Velaryon _

_ Master of War - Randyll Tarly _

_ Master of Trade - Tywin Lannister _

_ Master of Agriculture - Mace Tyrell _

_ Master of Innovation - Oberyn Martell _

_ Master of Labor - a Manderly _

_ Queen’s Council  _

_ Lady of Bread - Alerie Hightower Tyrell _

_ Lady of Protection - Rhaella Targaryen _

_ Lady of Grievances - Elia Martell _

_ Lady of Conspiracies - Olenna Tyrell _

Jon looked over the list and said, “There are a lot of Targaryen loyalists on this list. Our allies will be upset. Particularly Tully. There’s no one from the Riverlords on this list.”

“I know. But it’s important to prevent resentment from building in defeated enemies, and I have a reason for each of them. A spot on the Small Council was what I promised Tyrell and Lannister for their support. Tarly is to counter Tyrell. The Martells were treated terribly by Aerys. They’ll be against me because they want their own blood on the throne, but they’re not against  _ me _ personally, and I think this will be the first step to amicable relations with them. Velaryon, I understand your concern, and maybe I should give that to a Riverlord, but the Master of Ships is traditionally a Velaryon and consistency is important. Also, the Velaryons’ star has been on the decline since the Dance. This might show them that they could have something to gain from this, and where they go, many other Targaryen loyalists will follow.”

“Well thought out, sure, but none of this gives any reason to slight Hoster like this.”

“I know. Maybe it will be a problem, but I don’t care about slighting him. He didn’t make a good impression on me--he joined us because he was ambitious, not because it was the right thing to do. If he had really cared about the man sitting the Iron Throne being insane and killing a Lord Paramount for no reason, he wouldn’t have demanded we buy his support through his daughters, especially when he knew Ned wanted to marry Ashara. Also, no offense Jon, but what kind of man would make his young daughter marry a man old enough to be her grandfather, when there are plenty of other options? He could have tried to match her to Stannis; he might not be a Lord Paramount but the king’s brother is nothing to scoff at. I don’t think he’s a particularly caring father. And if you can’t trust a man to be kind to his children, can you trust him to be kind to anyone?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> King’s Council Positions  
> Hand - as seen in canon, also leader of House of Lords  
> Master of Laws - as seen in canon   
> Master of Coin - as seen in canon  
> Master of Ships -as seen in canon  
> Master of Whisperers -as seen in canon  
> Master of War - in charge of organizing, training, recruiting, and running the army, as well as educating military leadership  
> Master of Trade - does economic stuff: taxes, import/export, trade agreements, tariffs, etc.  
> Master of Agriculture - the voice of farmers/making sure enough food is being produced  
> Master of Innovation - in charge of a royal fund for scientific inventions and discoveries that improve quality of life, encourage scientific and technological development  
> Master of Labor - oversees infrastructure, also develops work projects for the unemployed  
> Grand Maester  
> Lord Commander/Kingsguard
> 
> Queen’s Council Positions  
> Hand - a member of the Council of Lords  
> Lady of Charity - oversees charities; dispenses the Royal Endowment for Charity set aside for   
> charity; investigates fraud  
> Lady of Bread - in charge of the food supply, making sure no one goes hungry  
> Lady of Orphans - runs orphanages, sees that all children are provided for and have the chance to learn an occupation  
> Lady of Protection - specifically, protection of wives and children from abuse  
> Lady of Grievances - general grievances, but also makes sure the smallfolk/servants aren’t being taken advantage of  
> Lady of Arts - oversees and allots money from the Royal Endowment for the Arts  
> Lady of Schools - oversees the Royal Fund for Education and runs the King’s Landing Academies, develops standard curriculum, gives scholarships to highly intelligent smallfolk, works with Lady of Orphans to see that orphans have some sort of education  
> Lady of Conspiracies - Master of Whisperers’ check and counterpart


	6. So How Are the Targaryens Doing?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhaella and Elia meet with Robert.

Rhaella and Elia were led into Robert Baratheon’s solar. While the votes were not to be cast until tomorrow, there was no way that he wasn’t going to be chosen as king. Not with the new powers he’d promised every lord. Now the ladies Targaryen were on damage control, trying to save as much of their prestige as they could. Trying to fall as short a distance as possible--from the top you could fall a  _ long _ way down. Baratheon had sent a message saying he had a generous offer for them. Baratheon, despite his railing against Targaryens before the Great Council, greeted them with a smile. He said, “Dowager Queen Rhaella, Princess Elia, it’s good to see you. I would like to say that I hold you and your children no ill will for the actions of Aerys or Rhaegar. On the contrary, I consider the two of you their greatest victims besides the Starks. I hope we can be friends--we are kin, after all.” He paused, opened a lockbox on his desk, and pulled out a piece of paper. “Queen Rhaella, I would like to offer you and your heirs the position in perpetuity of Lady of Dragonstone, and Lady Paramount of the Coastlands. The Coastlands are the area currently known as the Crownlands, with the exception of the city of King’s Landing. You will be eligible for all the privileges, responsibilities, and duties of a Lord Paramount, including appointing a representative to the Council of Lords. Additionally, I would like to offer both of you places on the Queen’s Council, another new council I am creating, and the right of use of royal titles and to the address of ‘Your Grace’ for the rest of your lives, though of course Elia is entitled to that regardless.”

“That is very generous, Your Grace,” Elia said. “May I ask if you will uphold Aerys’ decree barring Rhaegar’s line from the succession?”

“The succession of Dragonstone is not under the purview of the Iron Throne. The Head of House Targaryen has sole authority over that matter,” Baratheon said. “In other words, it is up for Rhaella to decide. That being said, Lyanna Stark has decided she would like to have her child considered a Stark, and not a Targaryen. I have written a letter of legitimization to that effect. Princess Elia, if, after your suffering at the hands of Rhaegar and Aerys, you would like to have your children made Martells, I would legitimize them as such.”

Elia started slightly. “No, thank you,” she said. “I would not like to deprive them of their inheritance. Unless, Rhaella, you would prefer Viserys….?”

“No,” Rhaella said. “Rhaegar was the firstborn. The laws of succession are clear. Aegon is my heir.”

“Rhaenys is older than Aegon,” Baratheon pointed out mildly. “If you wanted to follow absolute primogeniture, as the Dornish do, I would support you. This is a fresh start for House Targaryen. You can rewrite all the rules.”

“You are a surprise, Robert Baratheon,” Elia said. “Most men think Dornish laws of inheritance are foolish at best.”

“I think history shows that women are capable of anything men are,” Baratheon said. “Notions of natural submission or inferiority, all that’s tosh. The question is, whether their society will let them excel, or built impediments to their success. Most of Westeros has decided to systematically deny women power, which makes those who have managed to break the mold all the more remarkable.”

“Not many men believe that,” Rhaella said. She looked at Baratheon, her whole idea of the man remade. “I think House Targaryen is on tenterhooks as it is. We can’t afford to be too bold now. And considering the history of Targaryen women trying to take precedence over their brothers, which you so kindly pointed out...Aegon is heir.”

“It’s your call,” Baratheon said. “And I can’t say I disagree with your reasoning. And I’m sure Rhaenys will have just as bright a future as her brother--so closely related to not one but two Lords Paramount, she will surely be one of the most sought-after brides in the realm. I will ask, though, that you give me your word that if any of your children are proclaimed mad by a maester, you will bar them from inheriting the Paramountcy, or the position of Head of House.”

“That is--reasonable,” Rhaella conceded. “Very well.” She stood. “You have been very kind, Your Grace. Much kinder than my brother would have been, in your place.”

“Queen Rhaella,” Baratheon said. “Cousin. We are kin. You were very close to my parents--I hope that someday we can be like that again.”

“We will see,” Rhaella said.

“So we shall,” Baratheon said. “I have decided not to use the Iron Throne anymore. It is a symbol of the subjugation of the lords, who I would like to include in governing the realm. I have decided that possession of the artifact of the Iron Throne will remain with House Targaryen. House Targaryen also owns the Red Keep’s collection of dragon bones, historic crowns of Targaryen kings, and any other heirlooms from the Red Keep that you would like to take with you to Dragonstone. The decision of what happens to them, and where they go, are completely up to you, as is the case with all the heirlooms of Great Houses. That being said, I have an idea for what to do with them that I would like you to consider….”


	7. Daenerys Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A look at Daenerys growing up.

Daenerys grew up in the hustle and bustle of King’s Landing, in a townhouse with a red door. Her mama was the Lady of Protection, and a Queen, so she was very important. Her cousin was the king, who was most important person out of everyone. They were both very busy, but they both always had time for her. Daenerys and her niece and nephew Rhaenys and Aegon played and learned with the king’s children, Prince Lyonel, Prince Ormund, and Princess Leia, although the Baratheons were younger, and Ormund and Leia hadn’t started lessons yet. One day Daenerys was wandering the Red Keep, searching for hidden passages. She was alone, for once. Lyonel and Aegon were in the yard learning swordplay, Rhaenys was with her new friend Margaery, and Ormund and Leia were in the nursery. Daenerys had been with them, but the nursery was boring, and she was a big girl now. She rounded a corner and saw the king in the corridor ahead of her. He was alone except for Ser Barristan, who was her favorite knight. “Cousin Robert! Ser Barristan!” she cried, and happily ran over to them. “Where are you going?”

Cousin Robert picked her up and swung her around. He always did that, and it was always fun. “Daenerys!” he said. “Escaped the nursery, have you? We’re going to my solar. I have a meeting in an hour. Would you like to come and eat lunch with me?”

“Yes!” Daenerys said. She took his hand and bounced happily along their route. They passed eleven carved dragons along the way. There were a lot of dragons in the Red Keep. That’s because Daenerys’ family used to live there, although they didn’t anymore. Daenerys’ father had been a king, but he wasn’t very good at it, and because Aegon and Viserys were too young cousin Robert was king now. Viserys had always been mad about this, before he had been sent away to foster in the Vale, but most people seemed happy about this. Mama didn’t like to talk about before, when she had been Queen Consort instead of Queen Dowager, and she especially didn’t like to talk about Dany’s oldest brother Rhaegar, but she had once said the world was a better place without her father in it. She also said that the Iron Throne destroys men--she had said it to Viserys quite often before he had left, but Daenerys thought it was silly because the Iron Throne wasn’t used anymore. It was in the museum where the Dragonpit used to be, along with all the dragon bones. Daenerys had seen it, and because her mother owns all those things she got to touch the skull of Balerion the Black Dread. It had been warm.

“Cousin Robert,” she said, once they had settled into the plush armchairs in his solar, sent a maid off for food, and once Ser Barristan had taken his place by the door. “Cousin Robert, the maester was telling us about dragons today, and Lyonel said that Targaryens don’t deserve dragons, because we wasted them, so the gods took them away, and that you said so. Is that true?”

“More or less so,” cousin Robert said.

“So--you think I don’t deserve a dragon?” Daenerys asked, lip wobbling.

“I think, that if dragons ever were to come back into the world, it would be for a very special reason,” cousin Robert said. “And I think it would be wrong, if dragons could come back just because you or I want them to. I would love to have a dragon, and to fly wherever I wanted to go. I’m sure you would too. But a dragon isn’t just a way to fly--it’s a living thing, that scares a lot of people, and can be used to hurt a lot of people. It also would likely outlive us both, by quite a bit, and there’s a chance that after you or I were gone someone might use the dragon to hurt people. And that risk is not worth the joy that you or I would feel if we could go flying. I do think that the dragons died after the Dance because your ancestors had used them more to hurt people than to help people. But I also suspect Lyonel said what he did to hurt your feelings, and that was wrong of him.”

“I said I was going to have a dragon one day,” Daenerys said. “That’s when he said it.”

“I think every child dreams of having a dragon,” cousin Robert said. “But not every dream should come true. Yesternight I dreamed that my chair turned into butter, and I fell onto the floor in front of the entire Council of Lords! I wouldn’t like that to come true. I know dragons don’t seem like  _ that _ kind of dream. But if you had a dragon, a lot of people would be scared of you, and others would want you to use the dragon to destroy their enemies. It would be enough to make a person feel very lonely, I think, even when they weren’t alone. And what would you do if the dragon killed someone? How would you feel? Having a dragon would create more problems than it solves, and I think you are smart enough to solve your problems without needing a big fire-breathing lizard. The problem that your great-grandfather, Aegon the Unlikely, my favorite king, had was that he thought he needed a dragon to solve his problems and do what he needed to do. Don’t limit yourself like that, Daenerys--you can do anything you set your mind to, without any scaly friends. I would be scared, of anything that you  _ truly _ needed a dragon to do. Anything that truly requires a dragon would be very, very dangerous.”

* * *

Several years later, Daenerys returned to this very conversation. This time, in the library. She was perusing a slim volume, which contained Robert’s speech at the Great Council and his written-out plan for a new form of government (which he called a “constitution”), and was caught on the part of his speech where he talked about Targaryen “internal disputes,” and how they wasted the opportunities their dragons afforded them. She looked up and saw King Robert perusing a selection of maps nearby. She went over to him. “Your Grace,” she said with an obligatory curtsey--she wasn’t a little girl who could greet him with a chirpy “cousin Robert!” anymore-- “I was wondering if you could share with me some of your thoughts regarding the speech you made at the Great Council. I understand why you think past Targaryens were wrong to use dragons to fight each other. But why this talk of invading Essos?”

“Because that’s what I’d do, if I had dragons,” King Robert answered. “And because I think a lot of the Targaryens’ problems could have been solved by doing the same. They all wanted to be kings and queens, and were too fixated on the Iron Throne to realize that they could have easily carved out their own kingdoms in Essos instead. They could have created a whole string of kingdoms under Targaryen leadership, and used their shared blood to make an alliance that would turn them into the most powerful force in the world. Rhaenyra in particular is such a wasted opportunity-----she had what, five dragons with adult riders at the start of the Dance? With another ten that were riderless, or had child riders? That’s much more than Aegon the Conqueror had. She was perfectly positioned to conquer a city or two, especially since she would have gotten support from the Velaryons and Arryns at the very least. That would have been the smart thing to do, rather than fight each other and drag the rest of the realm into it. It’s debatable whether or not invading somewhere without provocation is the right thing to do, and certainly it has to end at some point, but I think in the case of Essos, since slavery is so rampant there, if the invader abolished slavery they could improve the lives of so many people as to make conquest ethical.”

“But Rhaenyra was named the heir in her father’s will,” Daenerys said. “The Iron Throne was rightfully hers.”

“And what is a rightful inheritance, compared to the lives of the people?” King Robert said. “It would have been one thing if her brother Aegon had been like Maegor the Cruel or Aegon the Unworthy. I suppose he might have been--he did feed Rhaenyra to a dragon, after all. But no such cruelty or negligence had manifested itself before the start of the Dance. There were no signs, at least that I had heard of, that he was unfit to be king. That meant that Rhaenyra did what she did because of pride--it would hurt her pride to accept someone else receiving her inheritance. But what is pride compared to a human life? Much less the thousands of lives that ended in the Dance, including most of Rhaenyra’s own children. She should have called a Great Council, and accepted the result if she lost, or made a deal with Aegon II to support her in her conquest in Essos. Her decision to fight for the throne guaranteed that people would die. She must have known it, but she did it anyway. And for what? What would she have done if she had won the Throne and managed to keep it? What could have made the Dance worthwhile? A king or queen should always have the best interest of the people in mind. They should make decisions that value human life, and try to keep casualties as low as possible, and if they decide on a course of action that will lead to loss of life--that is, war--they should make sure that they are fighting for something that is worth it. Knowing when to start a war, what is worth starting a war and what isn’t, is I think one of, if not the most, important skills of a monarch. War has to be  _ for _ something worth more than its cost--it has to be something that betters the realm or helps the people, more so than it hurts. A good king or queen will know that starting a war for a throne probably isn’t worth it, unless the person already occupying that seat is bad at their job, and hurting the people they were meant to protect. They will accept someone else on the throne if it means not putting the realm through a needless war. If Aegon II had been a tyrant like Maegor the Cruel people would remember Rhaenyra as a hero, despite the carnage of the Dance, because the people would be safer with a man like that off the Throne. But when her opponent was as unoffensive as Aegon II, whoever starts the war--especially if they are a woman, since people tend to be harder on them--will be remembered as a butcher.”

Robert paused. “Of course, by that standard most of the actions of Aegon the Conqueror would be considered immoral, and he should have stopped after Harrenhal. But he was talented enough to hold on to what he won, and most of his rule was peaceful, so he is remembered as a great man and not a great murderer. He certainly had a great imagination, great ambition. No Targaryen either before or after him as initiated a military campaign as ambitious as his. It’s very strange, really--it seems like no Targaryen had ambitions greater than Aegon the Conqueror’s, that is, to be the king of Westeros. None of them seemed to realize that if he could conquer a whole continent with little more than three dragons with three riders that they could do more with dragons  _ and _ the backing of all of Westeros behind them. They could have kept going, once their numbers were large enough, and with everyone carving out their own kingdoms there would have been no infighting between them. Some places, like Volantis, might have even welcomed their coming. And it’s not like they didn’t have the stomach for war--they had no problems warring with their own kin. I can’t call it anything but smallmindedness.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is sort of preachy, but Robert knows what Daenerys is capable of, knows that she might hatch dragons one day, and so it’s very important to him to try to teach her morals, and to seek power to help people with it rather than just to have it. In my opinion this is what Daenerys does in canon, both in Essos and Westeros, since by the time she gets to Westeros Cersei is queen and is a tyrant who needs to be overthrown. There’s also some critique of the history of Westeros. I love how in-depth it is, but it is unrealistic that people with dragons as OP as the dragons in GOT would have stopped at conquering Westeros. With Aegon himself, I understand--he lost his most beloved sister-wife, and governing somewhere is much harder than conquering it. With only three people holding on to Westeros AND conquering more territory would have been unrealistic. But once the number of Targaryens was in the double digits, and they were starting to fight each other for the Iron Throne? Why WOULDN’T they try to conquer more territory? Considering Aegon’s success with much less backing it is reasonable to think they would succeed, and so often that’s the only justification needed-- if they CAN do something, not if they SHOULD. If they have the power, they will exercise it. And it would have solved problems for the Targs and Westeros by keeping them too busy to fight amongst themselves for the Iron Throne. Idle hands and all that...  
> So what happens in this AU? When she’s fifteen, Daenerys receives a suitor from Pentos, who brings a gift of three dragon eggs. (Side note: this is fAegon, because I do believe that the real Aegon Targaryen died in King’s Landing and Varys is a Blackfyre trying to put a Blackfyre on the throne.) She rejects him, but takes the eggs when she travels north to meet Maester Aemon at the Wall. She meets Jon Stark along the way, who joins her. There’s a wight incident like in canon. Almost immediately afterwards the eggs hatch--maybe Daenerys does her funeral-pyre thing, mayb the eggs were just “woken up” by the magic of the Wall and the Others. Daenerys is like, Welp, the gods are bringing back dragons for a reason. She sends a letter to Robert and sounds the alarm. The Long Night happens. It lasts several years. The three heads of the dragon are actually five--Daenerys, Jon, Rhaenys, Aegon, and Leia Baratheon, who, yes, is named after Leia Organa. They defeat the Others, Jon and Daenerys fall in love as in canon, no one has a problem with it because there are several canon examples of marriages of that degree of incestuous being considered totally acceptable (and they’re not even all Targs! looking at you, Serena, Edric, Jonnel, and Sansa Stark), Rhaenys marries Lyonel Baratheon, because dragons, and Jonerys is like “so Westeros is in good hands, let’s go fight slavery in Essos.” Arya and Leia join them (and yes, they are a lesbian power couple). Daenerys becomes Queen of Meereen like in canon. They offer sanctuary to all runaway slaves and fund an Underground Railroad. Rhaella and Lyanna are very proud, though only Lyanna can move to Essos with them since Rhaella is a Lady Paramount.


	8. Excerpt from Greatest Writers of Westeros

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tyrion becomes something like the Westerosi version of Shakespeare.  
> Also, why "stealth preparing for the Long Night" is a tag.

Tyrion Lannister (274-362) first appeared as a writer in 284 AC, when he won third place in King Robert’s inaugural writing contest for the newly-established Royal Theatre in King’s Landing. The contest was an open call for scripts for a play about the life of Rhaelle Targaryen, King Robert’s grandmother. There were cash prizes, and the first-place winner would see their work as the first play performed in the new theatre. Lannister was only ten years old when the contest was announced, and eleven when he was awarded third place. His precociousness was noted by the king, who was close to Tyrion’s brother Ser Jaime Lannister of the Kingsguard (there is some evidence to suggest king had been read some of Tyrion’s more entertaining letters--the correspondence between the brothers was lengthy if rather one-sided). The king decided to encourage Lannister’s artistic endeavors by offering him a grant to research and write a play about the Northern legend of the Long Night. Lannister’s father, Lord Tywin Lannister, refused to allow his son to accept the grant and begrudgingly offered funding of his own instead. For the next four years Lannister traveled throughout Westeros, and made a brief jaunt to Essos, doing research that would prove to be crucial during the Second War for the Dawn only twenty years later. Lannister spent another two years writing and refining his script and at the ripe age of seventeen made his grand debut as a playwright with the epic  _ The Night Is Dark and Full of Terrors _ . The first draft of the play was six hours long. Lannister was annoyed by the amount of content, including several subplots, that had to be cut, and later adapted the original script to the page and published it as one of the first novels in Westeros. It remains one of the most popular novels in Westeros to this day. At the king’s urging he also published an essay about his research, which he eventually expanded into a combination travel diary and annotated research journal. Without his research Westeros would have been woefully unprepared going into the Second War for the Dawn. For this King Robert awarded him the highest honor given to heroes of that war, the title of Defender of Humankind, in one of his last acts as king before his then-unprecedented retirement.

_ The Night Is Dark and Full of Terrors _ was a smash hit, and the beginning of a truly astounding career. Over his long life Tyrion Lannister wrote twenty-three plays (many of which he also directed), seventeen novels, and a history of the Second War for the Dawn. He also edited a compilation of firsthand accounts of the war and collaborated or contributed on an uncertain number of works by other prominent writers of his time. His rather famously estranged father was recorded as having said “At least the gods spared his mind, when they made his body a mockery.” Lannister is most famous for witty dialogue and court dramas, but his work was not at all irreverent and often packs a strong emotional punch. His play  _ Fourteenth Flame _ , about the suffering of slaves in Old Valyria and the tragic romance of enslaved miners Shaenor and Lyria, sparked an abolitionist movement and led to a boycott of goods from what was then Slavers’ Bay. Queen Daenerys Targaryen named seeing the original production of the play as one of the formational moments of her life, and one of the reasons she decided to make ending slavery her life’s mission after the Second War for the Dawn. “Since dragons were once used to enslave the people of Essos, it is only right that now dragons shall free them,” she is said to have remarked. The words she chose for the branch of House Targaryen she founded in Essos reflects this mission and her dedication to it:  _ Zaldrizes buzdari iksos daor, _ “a dragon is not a slave.”  _ Fourteenth Flame _ , along with  _ Breaker of Chains _ , the play Lannister’s grandson Gerion Lannister wrote about the life of Daenerys Targaryen which includes multiple references to and several play-within-a-play productions of  _ Fourteenth Flame _ , remain the two most popular plays in Dragons’ Bay, considered part of the Daenerian country’s national heritage, and are put on back-to-back every year in the Festival of Dragons.

Lannister’s oeuvre contains a great range and variety of genres, tones, and emotions. From the raunchy, rollicking humor of the comedy  _ The Life of Mushroom _ , to the tragic and heartbreaking  _ Naerys _ , to the stark contrast of the touching romance of the title characters and startling outbursts and wild insanity of the king in his tribute to his father’s political prowess,  _ Tywin and Joanna _ , Tyrion Lannister displays a virtuosic mastery over language that was unparalleled for centuries.

In his personal life Tyrion was known for his prolific art collecting, the network of patronage he helped create using his many connections to Houses large and small, the occasional dabble into political matters, and his decades-long romance with the actress Nora Swanwhite (birth name Jeyne Flowers), his wife in all but name. They had four children together, Robert (298), Celia (300), Jaime (302), and Hope (309), who were all legitimized by royal decree in 330. Lannister met Swanwhite in 295 during the first production of his play  _ Life of Mushroom _ , in which he directed and she played the fictitious Aemma Celtigar, lady-in-waiting to Rhaenyra and lover of Ser Cristin Cole. This meeting marks the start of the most productive period of his career, writing twelve plays in ten years, including  _ Naerys _ , in which Swanwhite played the titular role. Every year between 295 and 305, he would premiere a new play every year on his birthday, making it a holiday of sorts in the theatre world. Lannister stopped writing between 305 and 315, during the Second War for the Dawn and the recovery efforts. During the Second War for the Dawn he was one of the few men of high birth in the capitol, and the only one to take a notable role in the “Government of the Ladies” which ran the Seven Kingdoms while the men were at the Wall. He played a key role in the War with the Slavers (307-309), when a group of disgruntled magisters hired Lysene and Tyroshi sellsails to conduct raids on the eastern coast of Westeros in retaliation for trade boycotts, designing the coastal defense system and leading a charge in the Battle of the Blackwater.

Lannister wrote a history of the Second War for the Dawn and the early recovery efforts which he published in 318, but did not return to theater until 322. Over the next twenty years he primarily took on a mentoring role to a new generation of playwrights, directors, and actors, though he also wrote eight more plays. In 345 he retired, leaving King’s Landing for the countryside, settling down only about two hours’ ride from Casterly Rock. It was after this point that he wrote most of his novels. 

At some point in the late 330s or early 340s he had begun gathering a collection of eyewitness accounts of the Second War for the Dawn, which he edited and published in 361, shortly before his death. This collection was very different from the conventional histories, which generally followed the exemplar he himself had created, starting with the rebirth of dragons and focusing on the leadership of the Baratheons and Starks in the North and the Government of the Ladies in the South, and on the exploits of the most extraordinary and famed fighters, such as the five dragonriders, Arya Stark, who was given the moniker of “the Deadly Wolf” for her White Walker kill count (higher than everyone except the dragonriders’), Lannister’s own brother, who became Lord Commander of the Kingsguard in the middle of the war, and his protegee Brienne of Tarth, the first woman to join the Kingsguard. This second historical work turned away from the figures in the spotlight and instead collected the perspectives of run-of-the-mill foot soldiers, brothers of the Night’s Watch, and even some smallfolk. It also included a chapter on the folklore stories and traditions that had sprung up among the succeeding generations. Though there was a burst of initial popularity immediately after publication, the book was largely unappreciated until the past century, when shifting focuses in scholarship and academia finally attributed value to the everyday experiences of common people, making it a seminal text for research on the period and giving its author once again the high praise of such accolades as “a pioneer” and “ahead of his time.”

Tyrion Lannister died in 362, at the age of eighty-eight, the longest-lived of his siblings and indeed most of his generation. Queen Cassana declared a national day of mourning. His funeral in King’s Landing was the most highly-attended of any man outside of the royal family. Queen Daenerys and her husband made their final trip to Westeros to pay their respects in person at his grave. He was buried with his wife in the family crypt at Clegane Keep, the home of his youngest daughter, who had married Duncan Clegane, the son of Sandor Clegane, also a notable fighter in the Second War for the Dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daeneria is the name of the country Daenerys founded in Essos. It was named as such shortly after her death later in the 360s. I like this idea and I have used it in some other things I might post on here sometime.  
> A timeline for the Second War for the Dawn: the dragons hatch in the year 300, which is also when reports of wights reach the capitol. The war doesn't start in earnest--that is, there isn't mass mobilizations of armies to the Wall--until 305, and ends in 312. The majority of Westeros' fighting forces are concentrated in the North at this time. "The Government of the Ladies" is led by Neressa Baratheon, Robert's wife (an OFC), Rhaella Targaryen, Elia Martell, Cersei Lannister, Tyrion, Margaery Tyrell, Myrcella Lannister, and Sansa Stark. They handled pretty much everything except the military strategy and actual fighting of the war--domestic affairs, international relations, trade, taxation, and, very importantly, supply chains. Some misogynists in Essos saw a government led by women, with only bare-bones security/police forces, as a weakness waiting to be exploited and started raiding. This was a very stupid idea because dragons, but as it turns out these women didn't even need a dragon to deal with that problem. They just sicced the Ironborn on them (the fleet was available as there were few naval battles fighting Others). Asha/Yara Greyjoy hasn't been mentioned thus far but she led that fleet and you know she kicked ass.  
> Also this was never mentioned but it's important that you know that, while Jaime and Tyrion were not there to save Tysha from the bandits, Sandor was! I love Sandor Clegane. This fic is a Sandor Clegane appreciation zone. Sandor and Tysha fall in love and eventually get married and live happily ever after. Neither Tywin Lannister nor Gregor ever bother them (Tywin because since he doesn't care who a Clegane marries and Gregor because Robert had Gregor executed very early on in his reign). I wonder if anyone has ever thought of this pairing before?


	9. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Cersei

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cersei receives a very different prophecy from Moggy the Frog. This and her experiences in Aerys' court lead her to reconsider her life goals...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoooo! This chapter is dedicated to Kamala Harris, the first woman of color to be elected vice president of the United States. Today is her and Joe Biden's day, and the whole world celebrates for them. Days like today make you feel like the arc of the universe really does bend towards justice.

When she was ten years old Cersei Lannister left Casterly Rock under cover of darkness to have her fortune told by a woodswitch. The haggard old crone tasted her blood and Cersei asked, breathlessly, “Will I marry the prince?”

Moggy the Frog’s eyes were still closed, as if savoring the taste of her blood. Without opening her eyes, the old woman said, “No, and thankful for it will you be. The prince is no fit husband for you. He will shame his wife publicly, and then abandon their children.”

This was just the right thing to say to prompt Cersei to let go of Rhaegar. She wanted to be queen, yes, but she wanted it because she was proud. Because she wanted to be powerful. Because she expected to be treated a certain way, and she didn’t like the idea of anyone being higher than her. Being humiliated and abandoned by a princely lover was the opposite of what she wanted.

“Who will I marry, then?” Cersei asked. She thought briefly of Prince Viserys, but then dismissed him as too young. She would be an old maid by the time he was old enough to wed.

“That is one of the two most important choices you will make in all your life,” Moggy said. “In seven years’ time, you will have a choice: you can marry the king, who will always expect you to hide that your lion’s claws and act as gentle as a lamb. You would be remembered forever as a great man’s wife first, and powerful woman second. Or you could choose a risky and treacherous path, and claim your place as your father’s heir and all that comes with it. If you do this you will be a great lady in your _own_ right, and your choice of husband becomes inconsequential. _He_ will be remembered as _your_ spouse, and the vehicle through which _you_ have heirs, not the other way around. You will be hated by some, revered by others, always looking for threats, always defending your power. It would be easier to become the king’s wife, and glide to glory on his coattails. Making your own way will be much harder. But if you do it, you will clear the way for hundreds of other women, and you would never have to hide your nature. You would _make_ them hear you. You would be able to _roar_.”

Cersei was silent, dazed by this prophecy, which wrapped up neatly everything she wanted on one side, and everything she thought she could have on the other. Then, shrewdly, she said, “What will be the other choice?”

Moggy the Frog smiled. She opened her eyes and stared deep into Cersei’s. “Winter is coming,” she said. “Ten years of summer, and then the worst winter in ten thousand years, a winter beyond your worst imaginings. You will hear strange stories and warnings from the North and the Night’s Watch. The choice will be to believe them, and prepare, or dismiss it as preposterous and be caught by surprise in the worst catastrophe since the Doom of Valyria. Unlike the Doom there is a chance you could survive it, but that is only if you heed the warnings, and if Daenerys Targaryen survives.” She smiled at Cersei’s shock and the beginnings of fear. She reached out and patted Cersei’s cheek maternally. “Go now, child. I have set you on your path. You have all the warnings you need.”

The next day Cersei asked the maester for a book about the North. It was an area she’d never really been interested in before--backwards and uncivilized, she’d been taught, and unlike Dorne they didn’t have rare spices or close links to the Throne to make up for it. But she figured they must know a thing or two about difficult winters, and Moggy had said the Stark words. That must mean something.

Cersei was not pleased by what she read. A normal Northern winter seemed bad enough--in the days before the Targaryens united the Seven Kingdoms, and the North could rely on shipments of grain from the South at fair prices, it was common, she read, for the sick and the elderly to purposely go out in the snow and die, so that there would be more food to go around for everyone else. Sometimes as much as forty percent of the population would die over the course of a winter. Snow would fall so deep and so fast that travel would be impossible for moons or even years at a time. Worst of all were legends of something called the Long Night, a winter that had lasted a generation, when the sun never rose and the dead walked and tried to kill the living. The stuff about the dead and the Others were nonsense, but maesters agreed that ten thousand years ago a monstrously long winter had happened. Not just the First Men but the Rhoynish and the Asshai’i had legends of it. This was the winter Moggy had been invoking--whatever was coming was the worst since _that_ happened. A winter that lasted a generation, where people were born, grew old, and died without ever knowing the summer sun.

How does one prepare for such a winter? Cersei knew the Westerlands, and the rest of Westeros, survived through a combination of building up a stockpile of foodstuffs over the summer and imports from areas that could still grow food, like the Lands of Always Summer. But if the legends about the sun not rising were true, then nowhere would be able to grow food. What would they do then?

Cersei turned away from histories. She read about the glasshouses of the North. She read about the theory that the seasons should be of equal length and not vary as they did, and that magic was the cause of irregular seasons somehow. She read a treatise on calculating the length of the next winter and did not really understand much other than that the winter generally lasted as long as the summer before it did. Moggy had mentioned a summer that lasted ten years. That meant that the winter she spoke of would be at least as long. That did seem to be longer than any of the winters in the past couple hundred years, she thought as she perused the book _The Changing of the Seasons_ , which recorded a thousand years of winters and summers. While a horrific prospect, ten years of winter seemed much more reasonable than a lifetime without sun, or wights, or any of the other Northern legends. It also seemed much more survivable, though Cersei had no idea what Daenerys Targaryen--there was no one currently alive with that name, one of Rhaegar’s future children, perhaps?--had to do with it.

Ten years of winter was a problem that was frightening but not insurmountable. After researching for a few months Cersei went to ask her father about how he would prepare for an unusually long winter. She brought the treatise that went mostly over her head to impress him, and to also point out that, according to its premise, an unusually long winter _was_ something that could be predicted. The treatise, and her question, were suitably impressive. Father had steepled his fingers and told her that the key was starting preparations early, and consistent use of rationing. “The man who doesn’t start to prepare for winter until fall will die, and more likely than not his family will lose whatever wealth or prestige they might once have had,” he’d said. “The smart man prepares all through the summer.” Cersei had asked if glasshouses might be a worthwhile investment, and Father had given her a considering look and said that, while most Houses would find the cost inhibitive, it was certainly something they could consider.

After that Jaime was sent away for fostering, and Father took Cersei with him to King’s Landing. Cersei was kept mostly out of Aerys’ way, and told sternly not to speak to him unless spoken to, not to look him in the eye, and not to do anything that would catch his attention. Cersei was able to fade into the background at court, and spent time in Rhaella’s sewing circle. At first she was swept up in the fragile beauty of the queen, the richness of court, where everyone dressed like a Lannister, and in establishing herself at the very top of the pecking order of girls her age (and a bit older). After a while, though, she started to notice things--how frail the queen always seemed, how pale and wan, with dark circles under her eyes. How she always wore long sleeves and high collars, and on the rare circumstances her sleeve fell down a bit it revealed bruises and scratches. How protective the ladies were of Rhaella, how they looked at her with poorly-concealed pity in their eyes. How Rhaella always knew if the king was going to visit, and how she would always send all her ladies away first, and how quickly they all scurried out. Once Cersei left a book there--one of the other ladies had been paging through it and had thrown it down on the couch when in her hurry to leave--and since it was so valuable, she felt she ought to send a servant to fetch it immediately, and seeing as they had only just left it wouldn’t be too much of an intrusion. The king might not have even arrived yet. Lady Velaryon had told her very firmly to _never_ to allow _anyone_ to go to the queen’s chambers after the king visited before the queen called the ladies back. And this was said in the tone that Aunt Genna had used when she found Cersei and Jaime exploring the tunnels of Casterly Rock near a cave-in. A tone that said _there is danger here_.

Cersei began paying closer attention to the queen then. She never seemed happy except when she was with one of her children. She rarely went to court if her presence wasn’t absolutely necessary. She wasn’t like the queens from the stories--she didn’t make pronouncements like Rhaenys and Alysanne had, didn’t hear complaints, never held public audiences. She never had male musicians come to her chambers to entertain her or her ladies. The only men who ever saw her privately were the Kingsguard, and in public any men were kept six feet away from her with several layers of buffering ladies. She rarely spoke to men at all, or even looked at them. Sometimes it was like they were invisible to her--it would have been rude, except the men stayed away from her too, and never tried to attract her attention. A few questions about this strangeness--her mother had never ignored her father’s bannermen like that--and one of the ladies explained to her, in a hushed voice, the king’s paranoia, and how he would instantly suspect any man he saw interact with Rhaella of being the queen’s lover. She told Cersei how the king had once decreed that the queen must be attended by two septas at all times for almost an entire year to police her chastity. And during her most recent pregnancies the king imprisoned her in her rooms like a princess in the Maidenvault--she had been confined to her bed for the entirety of her pregnancy with Viserys. The king was controlling, jealous, paranoid, and abusive. No one would ever want to be in Rhaella’s place, not even to be queen--she hardly even _was_ a queen, considering how little power she had. And this wasn’t the first time a Targaryen queen was treated this way--there were the infamous princesses in the Maidenvault, of course, who had been as heavily policed, monitored, and controlled as Rhaella was. But there was also Queen Naerys--like Rhaella, she hadn’t wanted to marry her brother, and had only done it because her father said to. Like Rhaella, she was wed to a brute who cared not a wit about her feelings. Like Rhaella, her husband shamed her with constant affairs, although admittedly Aerys was more discreet than Aegon the Unworthy. There was one story that particularly caught Cersei’s eye--it was said that after Daeron was born, Naerys was warned that she likely would not survive another pregnancy, and she went to her brother and suggested that, since they have an heir, they should afterwards live as brother and sister, rather than husband and wife. Aegon had said no, and forced her to stay in his bed knowing it might kill her.

Realizing that queens could be treated this way was so paradigm-altering as to challenge the definition of queen itself. Weren’t queens supposed to be powerful? Were not all the knights of the realm supposed to protect them? It dawned on Cersei that a queen has as much power as her husband allows her to have. That’s the way it was with Targaryens, at least--Aerys wanted Rhaella to be flightless, so he stripped her of her wings and fangs and claws. She was more wyrm than dragon now. The problem, Cersei thought, was that Rhaella had married her brother. If she had married into another House they would not dare treat a princess that way. But that wasn’t all. Her marrying within her own House divided loyalties--there were none who had a greater tie to her than to her husband, and thus would defend her from him, as Naerys had found out. Houses defend their own, but in internal disputes tended to default to taking the side of whoever had a cock, which was why a woman needed to be able to call in her own separate House that her husband was not part of to back her up. Looking over histories of the Seven Kingdoms from the time before the Conquest, Cersei realized that it was _especially_ important for a queen to come from a separate House than the king. That was the one way she could get around attempts to block her from power--if her family was important enough, powerful enough, and especially if his position was somewhat threatened, he would not be able to refuse her. Having an influential family was _leverage_ in a royal marriage. That more than anything else made Targaryen queens exactly as powerful as their brother-husbands wanted them to be. 

Maybe this was why Aerys had refused to wed Rhaegar to her. Maybe it wasn’t simple madness--people already said her father was the de facto king. How much more powerful would he be with his daughter married to the heir to the throne? What concessions might he be able to wring from the Aerys? What concessions could _she_ have gotten from Rhaegar? Cersei had always loved stories of Lannister queens who married kings of neighboring, much smaller kingdoms and used the overwhelming power of their family name to become the power behind the throne, and browbeat their husbands into becoming Lannister puppet-kings or vassals outright. Myrcella the Uniter was her favorite story as a girl. Maybe Aerys had a moderately rational fear of that kind of situation.

Cersei began to think about all the marriages she had been exposed to in her life, and compare them. She had always thought that her parents had had a perfect marriage, and always been impressed by the power they wielded as Lord and Lady of Casterly Rock, but looking back, she realized that there was a power imbalance in their relationship. Joanna Lannister had married within her own house. Not only that, but she married _up_ \--she came from a more minor branch of the family and she married the heir to the main line. If Tywin had wanted to make her politically inert the way Aerys did to Rhaella she had no hope of resisting him. If he had beaten her she would not only have trouble finding a protector--any protector she found was likely to be an ineffective one, which might just worsen her situation. Her mother had been _lucky_. If she had married into another House, Tywin would have been her defender, the same way he was with Aunt Genna. All of the power he held as Lord of the Westerlands and the wealthiest man in Westeros would have been funneled into protecting her the way he protected all of House Lannister. Instead her mother had put herself totally under his sway and completely at his mercy--and all of that power could have become a hindrance to her, for if her situation had soured there was none who could protect her from him.

Thinking about all of this, Cersei began to reconsider what she wanted from life. Lords Paramount usually married their children amongst their bannermen. Cersei had always scoffed at the practice and disdained the thought of marrying a Westerlord. Maybe that was fine for ordinary daughters of Lords Paramount, but she had seen it as beneath her, as lowering her station when all she wanted was to _rise_ . She had always been determined to be just as great a lady as her mother had been, or better--that is, to be wife to a Lord Paramount, or else to be queen. Anything else was simply demeaning. But marrying a bannerman, she realized, would be _safe_ . They would never dare mistreat _Lord Tywin_ ’s daughter. She could probably even overrule her husband’s decisions and be the ruler of the castle--there would be a power imbalance, but it would be distinctly in her favor. She liked that idea. That was a guarantee of power and safety that she wouldn’t have if she married into a House of equal status to her own. There might be a slight balance in her favor, due to the Lannisters’ incredible wealth, but she would have to be more careful and more subtle in her moves and manipulations. Also, she realized, her father would think nothing of issuing a reprimand or command to one of his bannermen, but would be more cautious dealing with another Lord Paramount. And other Lords Paramount and their sons wouldn’t have respect for and obedience to the Lannister name hammered into them from an early age like a Westerman. It might be better to have a less powerful husband who knew his place than a Lord Paramount who thought he could order _her_ around.

Maybe a lord marrying his daughters to bannermen was a kindness from a protective father. What did it say that her father had seemingly never considered it for her?

Now Cersei was considering it. With one of her father’s leal bannermen, she could be queen of the castle, even if it was just the one castle. She could stay close to Jaime, and through him eventually rule the Westerlands. She imagined it, having total control within a small domain, and being de facto Lady of Casterly Rock, overriding the edicts of Jaime’s nonconsequential little wife. She could raise her daughter to marry Jaime’s son and take her rightful place as Lady of the Westerlands. Maybe her name would only be recorded in genealogy books, but it would be a good life. A comfortable life. A life with some degree of power.

It was an acceptable life. There was only one issue, one fly in the ointment: Jaime’s wife. Jaime’s children. No one should take Cersei’s place by Jaime’s side, even if it was only in title. _Cersei’s_ children should inherit Casterly Rock. They shouldn’t have to _marry in_ like common riffraff. They shouldn’t be hangers-on to their more fortunate cousins like Uncle Kevan’s children. Oh, if only she could marry Jaime! That would be perfect. She had complete and total control over him, and she would never have to give up her home, her birthright, to some other woman. She’d rule the Westerlands and pass them on to her children as she was meant to. She was aware now that she was coveting a fate she had recognized as perilous, but it would be different. Jaime loved her, totally and absolutely. She had captured his heart as Rhaella and Naerys had been unable to do with their brothers. As her mother had done with her father. That was the secret of her mother’s happiness, her _empowerment_ \--she had enchanted her father in a way that Rhaella couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do to her brother.

If Cersei were queen, she would be a different kind of queen than Rhaella. She would have to be--her father was too powerful for it not to carry over. But if she wanted to cement her position she would need to bewitch and beguile her husband. It should be simple enough, she’d done it splendidly with Jaime. Cersei began to pay careful attention to court romances and flirtations. It was easy enough to capture a boy’s attention, she learned. It was another thing to keep it. What was between a woman’s legs was a powerful weapon, Cersei learned, but one that lost potency with each use. Men would go to great lengths to be permitted access to it, but once they had had that access they lost all interest, she learned, reading of Mern VIII. But chases could not be drawn out forever, she thought, especially if you are married to a man. What then?

Cersei continued on for several years, observing, learning, preparing for winter, winning her father over with carefully thought-out questions, keeping the witch’s words in the back of her mind and wondering if she should believe them. She was thinking of the witch’s words when she coaxed Jaime to join the Kingsguard. According to the witch, she would have a choice to make. With one choice, she could be queen, in which case Ser Jaime of the Kingsguard would be near her forever and nothing would separate them. In the other, impossible scenario, which she dreamed of sometimes in the deepest of night but did not truly believe would happen, she became Lady of the Westerlands. How could that be possible unless something happened to her brothers? Joining the Kingsguard was the kindest possible fate that would bar Jaime from inheriting the Rock. With that choice, Cersei knew she had put the safe option of marrying a bannerman and trying to rule through Jaime behind her. She never was content to dream small; her ambition was too great to be put aside. She would be queen, or she would be the first Lady Paramount. The die was cast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know how realistic/in character a Cersei this is. I think it might be more in character for her to assume that Rhaella’s situation would never happen to her. She would think, “Well I would never fail to enrapture a man,” or think she could manipulate him, or at that age maybe earnestly think that she was so manifestly great that men could not help but genuinely love her. A really conceited, misguided, maybe bordering-on-victim-blaming way of thinking. But this is the best of all possible AUs, where only the Others and Aerys himself are villains, and in this Cersei is a little more reflective, a little less confident, and she learns from the messed-up stuff she sees at Aerys’ court and realizes it could happen to her too.  
> Also Mern VIII is Westerosi Henry VIII.


	10. An Excerpt From A History of Houses Baratheon and Targaryen in the Fourth Century

The fourth century saw four Baratheon kings and one Baratheon queen. Of the four Baratheon kings, two had Targaryen wives, and a third a wife with a Targaryen mother. Only one royal spouse was unconnected to the Targaryens. To understand the intertwined history of Houses Baratheon and Targaryen in the fourth century, one must begin in the first half of the third century with Aegon V Targaryen, commonly known as “Aegon the Unlikely.” Fourth-century House Baratheon and both branches of House Targaryen are descended from him and his wife Betha Blackwood. They had five children, Duncan, Jaehaerys, Shaera, Daeron, and Rhaelle. The first four famously rejected the betrothals their parents had planned for them, Duncan for Jenny of Oldstones, Jaehaerys and Shaera for each other, and Daeron reportedly for his male lover. Dutiful Rhaelle was betrothed to Lyonel Baratheon’s heir as recompense for her eldest brother breaking his betrothal, and she was the only one to do as she was bid. She never lived to see it, but from that union came a line of kings that would destroy the Iron Throne and bring a new era to Westeros.

After the Tragedy of Summerhall decimated House Targaryen in 259, a sickly King Jaehaerys took the Iron Throne, but the Seven Kingdoms knew he was not long for this world, and so the hopes of House Targaryen rested on the shoulders of Prince Aerys, Princess Rhaella, and their newborn son Rhaegar. At the time, futures looked bright--Aerys was popular and charismatic, and had close relationships to Steffon Baratheon and Tywin Lannister, both future Lords Paramount. But it was not to be--Aerys, as we all know, went mad, and for a time it seemed he would lead House Targaryen to its ruin. In this he was aided by his son Prince Rhaegar, who despite already being married and having two children (Rhaenys and Aegon), absconded with Lyanna Stark, the betrothed of his cousin Robert Baratheon. This event indirectly started Robert’s Rebellion in 282, as Aerys killed Lady Stark’s father and brother when they went to King’s Landing to ask for her whereabouts. Robert’s Rebellion ended in 283 after the deaths of Prince Rhaegar and King Aerys. In 284 Robert called for a Great Council and was proclaimed king, bypassing Rhaegar’s children and younger brother. Many expected him to banish the Targaryens, or even call for their heads, as Aerys surely would have done. But Robert was renowned for his mercy, and moreover remembered that they were kin, and instead cushioned their fall, naming Dowager Queen Rhaella Lady of Dragonstone, and the first Lady Paramount of the newly-created Coastlands, formerly the Crownlands.

Robert married Neressa Hardyng, the niece of Jon Arryn, in the same year. They had three children: Lyonel, in 286, Leia in 289, and Ormund in 291. Though never formally betrothed, expectations arose at an early age that Lyonel would marry Rhaenys Targaryen and unite the Targaryen and Baratheon claims to the throne. This match was cemented when Rhaenys’ aunt Daenerys (born 284) hatched dragons while on a visit to the Wall in 300. Magic was awakening north of the Wall, and bringing with it the dead and the Second War for the Dawn. The exploits of that war (305-312) are well-known. The war served to create strong alliances between the heirs of Houses great and small, at the Wall and the “Government of the Ladies” in King’s Landing. With approximately 80% of men of fighting ability stationed at the Wall, including King Robert and every able-bodied Lord Paramount, Westeros was left, for the most part, to be run by ladies. They set up an efficient system, with administrative centers in each kingdom at the seat of the Lord Paramount and a central hub in King’s Landing. Catelyn Stark was in charge in Winterfell, Lysa Arryn in the Eyrie, Roslin Tully in Riverrun, Shireen Baratheon in Storm’s End, Rhaella Targaryen in Dragonstone, Olenna Tyrell in Highgarden, Genna Lannister in Casterly Rock, Jeyne Greyjoy* in Pyke, and Doran Martell, unable to fight due to his gout, in Sunspear. In King’s Landing Neressa Baratheon, Elia Martell, Cersei and Myrcella Lannister, Sansa Stark, Margaery Tyrell, and Tyrion Lannister worked tirelessly to maintain peace below the Wall and keep the supply chains to the North running. They also had to deflect increased raidings by slavers, culminating in a brief war (307-309).

After the war ended there was a string of marriages between these heroes of the home front and the Warriors for the Dawn, leading 316 to be remembered as the Year of Many Weddings. Rhaenys Targaryen married Prince Lyonel Baratheon. Margaery Tyrell wed Aegon Targaryen. Daenerys Targaryen married Jon Stark, Rhaegar’s legitimized bastard by Lyanna. They decided to create a kingdom for themselves in Essos, taking over three cities in Slavers’ Bay and beginning a lifelong war against slavery. They were joined by Princess Leia and Arya Stark, both notable heroes from the war. After the death of her older brother in the war Myrcella Lannister was named the heiress to Casterly Rock on account of her stellar leadership during the Government of the Ladies. She married Brandon Stark with the understanding that their children would take her name. Sansa Stark married Domeric Bolton, the only major player in the Government of the Ladies who did not become a Lady Paramount. Nevertheless she had a long and happy marriage and played a major role in reforms in House Bolton and the North at large.

All of the marriages of the year 316, it is said, proved to be fruitful. King Lyonel and Queen Rhaenys had a daughter, Cassana, and two sons, Jon and Oberyn. Lord and Lady Targaryen had five children, Aemma, Baelor, Aelinor, Maera, and Daeron. In Essos Queen Daenerys had four children, two sons and two daughters.

In 320 King Robert made the unprecedented step of abdicating the throne. “The crown has rested heavy on my head for forty-six years,” he said in a speech, “it is time to pass it on to a new generation, a generation that has proven itself in a war unlike any seen for thousands of years, a generation that responds to the challenges of our day with unparalleled vitality and vigor. I leave Westeros to the protection of my son Lyonel and his wife Rhaenys, with confidence that they will fulfill their duties ably, in the hope of a peaceful retirement in my dotage with my wife, the reward of a long life of service.” As Robert predicted, Lyonel served competently until his unexpected death in 354. His daughter Cassana followed him, the family following Dornish absolute primogeniture. Cassana, known as the Maiden Queen, refused to marry, instead naming her brother Jon as her heir. Cassana’s refusal to marry quieted fears of a second Dance of the Dragons. The Maiden Queen was cut from the same cloth as her grandfather, and Aegon V before him. She is fondly remembered for her reforms and as a champion of the rights of the smallfolk. These decisions were unpopular at the time and may have had a role in her death in 365, which was widely considered assassination by poisoning.

And so Jon I Baratheon ascended the throne, at the age of forty-four. He was furious at what he perceived as his sister’s murder. A number of investigations led to the executions of half a dozen people. He was married, as was noted before, to Aemma Targaryen. Both were dragonriders. They were good friends who had enjoyed flying together from a very young age, but they both turned to others for romance--Jon had a longtime mistress and recognized bastard, and recently published letters reveal that Queen Aemma was in love with one of her ladies-in-waiting. They had three children, Robert, Stannis, and Elia. Jon I oversaw a slew of infrastructure projects and an overhaul of tax laws. He funded the construction of several monuments remembering the Second War for the Dawn and the foundation of several universities. Following in the footsteps of his grandfather, he abdicated in 386 in favor of his son Robert II Baratheon, who was married to Cersei Lannister. Cersei was the daughter of Tyric Lannister and Aelinor Targaryen, so she was his maternal cousin. They ruled for the rest of the fourth century and into the fifth. They were both headstrong individuals and their relationship was tumultuous at times, but they had a happy, successful marriage with seven children. After Robert died Cersei wore mourning clothes for the rest of her life, popularizing the tradition, which would be commonplace for the next three hundred years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this a while ago but when I was reading it over I got kind of squicked out by the amount of incest. It makes sense in the context of the world for everyone to marry their cousins but it felt like I was endorsing it. Anyways, I got a kick out of having a Robert Baratheon marry a Cersei Lannister. And then they have the marriage Cersei and Tywin dreamed of...except better, because dragons. What would Tywin have given to marry his family into a group of dragonriders?
> 
> Also, Jeyne Greyjoy is Theon's wife. Since the Iron Islands uprising never happened and he was never sent to foster indefinitely in the North, he was able to get married.

**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea, but I am not confident in my ability to carry it out. I have lots of ideas but I don't think I can nail the emotional reactions of the characters to each others' actions. I've been writing bits and pieces in this universe since July though and I have a number of scenes, so I thought I would share them. If anyone feels inspired to try to tackle this the way it deserves you are welcome to it and I look forward to reading it! Feel free, please, I want to read this fic without having to write it first....


End file.
